Every Which Way But Dead (42 page)

I realized I was staring at my plate. What I had been missing was beautiful. Pulling in a breath of air, I drew my head up. Trent had sat again, watching. Stunned, I reached to touch the headphones, reassuring myself that they were really there. The vamp track was indescribable.

And then the woman started to sing. I looked at Trent, feeling panicked, it was so beautiful. He nodded with a Cheshire cat smile. Her voice was lyrical, both rough and tragic. It pulled emotion from me I wasn't aware I could feel. A deep painful regret. Unrequited need. “I didn't know,” I whispered.

As I listened to the end, unable to take the headphones off, Trent took our plates to the kitchen. He came back with an insulated pot of tea, topping off his cup before sitting down. The track ended, leaving only silence. Numb, I slid the headphones off and set them by my coffee.

“I didn't know,” I said again, thinking that my eyes must look haunted. “Ivy can hear all that? Why doesn't Takata release them sounding like that?”

Trent adjusted his position in his chair. “He does. But only the undead can hear it.”

I touched the headphones. “But you—”

“I made them after finding out about the vamp track. I wasn't sure they would work with witches. I gather by your expression that they did?”

My head bobbed loosely. “Ley line magic?” I questioned.

A smile, almost shy, flickered over him. “I specialize in misdirection. Quen thinks it a waste of time, but you'd be surprised what a person will do for a pair of those.”

I pulled my eyes from the headphones. “I can imagine.”

Trent sipped his tea, leaning back in speculation. “You don't…want a pair, do you?”

I took a breath, frowning at the faint taunt in his voice. “Not for what you're asking, no.” Setting my mug of coffee at arm's length, I stood. His earlier behavior of mimicking my motions was suddenly abundantly clear. He was an expert in manipulation. He had to know what signals he was sending. Most people didn't—at least consciously—and that he had tried to lay the groundwork to try to romance my help when money wouldn't buy it was contemptible.

“Thanks for dinner,” I said. “It was fabulous.”

Surprise brought Trent straight. “I'll tell Maggie you enjoyed it,” he said, his lips tightening. He'd made a mistake, and he knew it.

I wiped my hands off on my sweatshirt. “I'd appreciate that. I'll get my things.”

“I'll tell Quen you're ready to go.” His voice was flat.

Leaving him sitting at the table, I walked away. I caught a glimpse of him as I turned and went into Ellasbeth's rooms. He was touching the headphones, his posture unable to hide his annoyance. The bandage on his head and his bare feet made him look vulnerable and alone.

Stupid lonely man,
I thought.

Stupid ignorant me for pitying him.

I
scooped my shoulder bag up from the bathroom floor, making a slow circuit to be sure I'd gotten everything. Remembering my garment bag, I went to retrieve it and my coat from the changing room. My jaw dropped at the open phone book on the low table and my face flamed. She had it open to escorts, not independent runners. “She thinks I'm a hooker,” I muttered, ripping the page out and jamming it into my jeans pocket. Damn it, I didn't care that we both did legit escort service occasionally, Ivy was going to take it out. Ticked, I shrugged into my ugly coat with the fake fur about the collar, snatched up my unworn outfit, and left, almost running into Trent on the open walkway. “Whoa! Sorry,” I stammered, taking two steps back.

He tightened the tie on his robe, his eyes empty. “What are you going to do about Lee?”

The night's events rushed back, making me frown. “Nothing.”

Trent rocked back, surprise making him look young. “Nothing?”

My focus blurred as I recalled the people scattered where they fell past my saving. Lee was a butcher. He could have gotten them out but had left them so it would look like a hit by Piscary. Which it was, but I couldn't believe that Kisten would do that. He must have warned them. He had to have. But Trent was standing before me, his green eyes questioning.

“It's not my problem,” I said, and pushed past him.

Trent was right behind me, his bare feet silent. “He tried to kill you.”

Not slowing, I said over my shoulder, “He tried to kill you. I got in the way.”
Twice.

“You're not going to do anything?”

My gaze went to the huge window. It was hard to tell in the dark, but I thought it was clear again. “I wouldn't say that. I'm going to go home and take a nap. I'm tired.”

I headed for that six-inch-thick door at the end of the walkway. Trent was still behind me. “You don't care he's going to flood Cincinnati with unsafe Brimstone, killing hundreds?”

My jaw tightened as I thought of Ivy's sister. The jarring from my steps went up my spine. “You'll take care of him,” I said dryly. “Seeing as it touches your
business interests.”

“You have no desire to seek revenge. None whatsoever.”

His voice was thick with disbelief, and I stopped. “Look. I got in his way. He's stronger than me. You, on the other hand…I'd just as soon see you fry, elf-boy. Maybe Cincinnati would be better without you.”

Trent's smooth face went blank. “You don't seriously believe that.”

Shifting my garment bag, I exhaled. “I don't know what I believe. You aren't honest with me. Excuse me. I have to go home and feed my fish.” I walked away, headed for the door. I knew the way to the front, and Quen would probably catch up with me somewhere in between.

“Wait.”

The pleading tone in his voice pulled me to a stop, my hand touching the door. I turned as Quen appeared at the foot of the stairway, his face worried and threatening. Somehow, I didn't think it was because I was about to go wandering through the Kalamack compound, but of what Trent might say. My hand fell from the doorknob.
This might be worth staying for.

“If I tell you what I know of your father, will you help me with Lee?”

At the ground floor, Quen shifted. “Sa'han—”

Trent's brow furrowed defiantly.
“Exitus acta probat.”

My pulse quickened and I adjusted the fake fur collar of my coat. “Hey! Keep it English, boys,” I snapped. “And the last time you said you would tell me about my dad, I came away with his favorite color and what he liked on his hot dog.”

Trent's attention went to the floor of the great room and Quen. His security officer shook his head. “Would you like to sit down?” Trent said, and Quen grimaced.

“Sure.” Eyeing him warily, I retraced my steps and followed him to the ground floor. He settled himself in a chair tucked between the window and a back wall, his comfortable posture telling me this was where he sat when he was in this room. He had a view of the dark waterfall, and there were several books, their ribbon bookmarks giving evidence of past afternoons in the sun. Behind him on the wall were four tattered Visconti tarot cards, each carefully protected behind glass. My face went cold as I realized that the captive lady on the Devil card looked like Ceri.

“Sa'han,” Quen said softly. “This is not a good idea.”

Trent ignored him, and Quen retreated to stand behind him, where he could glower at me.

I put my garment bag over a nearby chair and sat, my legs crossed at the knees and my foot bobbing impatiently. Helping Trent with Lee would be a small thing if he told me anything of importance. Hell, I was taking the bastard out myself as soon as I got home and whipped up a few charms. Yeah, I was a liar, but I was always honest with myself about it.

Trent edged to the end of his seat, his elbows on his knees and his gaze on the night. “Two millennium ago, the tide turned in our effort to reclaim the ever-after from the demons.”

My eyes widened. Foot stilling, I took my coat off. This might take a while to get to my dad. Trent met my gaze, and seeing my acceptance of this roundabout way, he eased back in a squeak of leather. Quen made a pained sound deep in his throat.

“The demons saw their end coming,” Trent said softly. “In an unusual effort of cooperation, they set aside their internal squabblings for supremacy and worked to twist a curse upon all of us. We didn't even realize it had happened for almost three generations, not recognizing the higher fatality percentage of our newborn for what it was.”

I blinked. The demons were responsible for the elves' failure? I thought it had been their habit of hybridizing with humans.

“Infant mortality increased exponentially each generation,” Trent said. “Our tenuous grip on victory slipped from us in tiny coffins and the sound of mourning. Eventually we realized they had twisted a curse on us, changing our DNA so that it spontaneously broke, each generation becoming progressively worse.”

My stomach roiled. Genetic genocide. “You tried to repair the damage by hybridizing with humans?” I asked, hearing the smallness of my voice.

His eyes flicked from the window to me. “That was a last ditch effort to save something until a way could be developed to fix it. It was ultimately a disaster, but it did keep us alive until we improved the genetic techniques to arrest and ultimately repair most of the degradation. When the Turn made it illegal, the labs went underground, desperate to save the few of us who managed to survive. The Turn scattered us, and I find a confused child about every other year.”

Feeling unreal, I whispered, “Your hospitals and orphanages.” I had never guessed there was a motive other than public relations behind them.

Trent smiled faintly upon seeing the understanding in my eyes. Quen looked positively ill, his wrinkles sliding into each other, his hands behind his back, staring at nothing in a silent protest. Trent eased forward again. “I find them sickly and dying, and they're always grateful for their health and the chance to seek out more of their kin. It's been a thin line the last fifty years. We're balanced. This next generation will save or damn us.”

The thought of Ceri intruded, squelched. “What does this have to do with my dad?”

A quick nod bobbed his head. “Your father was working with mine trying to find an old sample of elven DNA in the ever-after that we could use as a pattern. We can fix what we know is wrong, but to make it better, to bring the infant mortality down to where we can survive without medical help, we needed a sample from someone that died before the curse was twisted. Something that we can pattern the repairs upon.”

A sound of disbelief escaped me. “You need a sample over two thousand years old?”

He lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. His shoulders didn't seem as wide in the robe, and he looked comfortably vulnerable. “It's possible. There were many pockets of elves that practiced mummification. All we need is one cell even marginally perfect. Just one.”

My eyes flicked to a stoic Quen, then him. “Piscary almost killed me trying to find out if you hired me to go into the ever-after. It's not going to happen. I'm not going there.” I thought of Al waiting for me, my agreement worthless on his side of the lines. “No way.”

An apologetic slant came into Trent's eyes as he watched me from across the coffee table. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean for Piscary to focus on you. I would have rather told you the entire story last year when you quit the I.S., but I was concerned…” He took a slow breath. “I didn't trust you to keep your mouth shut about our existence.”

“You trust me now?” I said, thinking of Jenks.

“Not really, but I have to.”

Not really, but I have to. What the hell kind of an answer is that?

“We're too few to let the world know we exist,” Trent was saying, his eyes on his laced fingers. “It would be too easy for a zealot to pick us off, and I have enough trouble with Piscary trying to do just that. He knows the threat we will pose to his standing if our numbers increase.”

My mouth twisted and I pushed back into the leather. Politics. It was always political. “Can't you just untwist the curse?”

His face was weary as he turned to the window. “We did when we discovered what had happened. But the damage remains, and would be worsening if we didn't find every elven child and fix what we can.”

My lips parted in understanding. “The camp. That's why you were there?”

He shifted reluctantly in his chair, looking suddenly nervous. “Yes.”

I pressed back farther into the cushions, not knowing if I wanted him to answer my next question. “Why…why was I at that camp?”

Trent's stiff posture eased. “You have a somewhat unusual genetic defect. A good five percent of the witch population has it—a recessive gene which is harmless unless they pair up.”

“One in four chance?” I guessed.

“If both parents have it. And if the two recessive genes pair up, it kills you before your first birthday. My father managed to keep it suppressed in you until you were old enough to handle a full course of treatment.”

“He did this a lot?” I asked, my stomach knotting. I was alive because of illegal genetic manipulation. It was what I had guessed, but now I knew for sure. Maybe I shouldn't let it bother me. The entire elf race relied on illegal medicine to remain in existence.

“No,” Trent said. “Records indicate that with very few exceptions, he allowed infants with your affliction to die, their parents not knowing there was a cure. It's rather expensive.”

“Money,” I said, and Trent's jaw clenched.

“If the decision was based on money, you wouldn't have seen your first birthday,” he said tightly. “My father didn't take one cent for saving your life. He did it because he was friends with your father. You and Lee are the only two running about under the sun that he pulled back from that death, and that was because of friendship. He didn't take a dime for saving either of you. Personally, I'm starting to think he made a mistake.”

“This isn't making me want to help you,” I said snidely, but Trent gave me a tired look.

“My father was a good man,” he said softly. “He wouldn't refuse to help your father save your life when your father had already devoted his life to help him save our entire race.”

Frowning, I put a hand to my stomach. I didn't like what I was feeling. My father didn't sacrifice his life in exchange for mine—which was a good thing. But he wasn't the upright, honest, hardworking I.S. runner I had thought. He had willingly helped Trent's father with his illegal activities long before I got sick.

“I'm not a bad person, Rachel,” Trent said. “But I will eliminate anyone who threatens to stop the flow of money coming in. My research to repair the damage the demons did to my people's genome isn't cheap. If we could find an old enough sample, we could fix it completely. But it has degraded to the point where we don't know even the color of the pieces anymore.”

My thoughts lighted on Ceri, and I steeled my face. The thought of her and Trent meeting was intolerable. Besides, she was only a thousand years old.

Trent's smooth features went tired with a worry far beyond his years. “If the money stops, the next generation of elves will start to slip again. Only if we find a sample from before the curse was twisted can we fix it completely and my species will have a chance. Your father thought it was a task worth dying for.”

My eyes flicked to the tarot card with Ceri's likeness and I kept my mouth shut. Trent would use her like a tissue and throw her away.

Trent leaned back, his gaze going sharp on mine. “Well, Ms. Morgan,” he said, managing to appear in control even wearing a robe and pj's. “Have I given you enough?”

For a long moment I looked at him, watching his jaw slowly tighten when he realized I was balancing and not knowing which way I was going to jump. Feeling cocky and self-assured, I raised my eyebrows. “Oh hell, Trent. I was going after Lee anyway. What do you think I was doing in your bathtub for two hours? Washing my hair?”

I had no choice but to tag Lee after he tried to blow me up. If I didn't, every mark I put behind bars was going to come out gunning for me.

Trent's face went annoyed. “You've got it figured out already, don't you?” he asked, irritation thick in his river-gray voice.

“Mostly.” I beamed, and Quen sighed, clearly having seen beforehand that I was going to snooker his boss but good. “I just need to call my insurance agent and set it up.”

Knowing I had gotten the better of Trent was worth more than he could ever line my pockets with, and I snorted when Quen whispered, “Her insurance agent?”

Still sitting, I pointed a finger at Trent. “I've got two things for you to do. Two things, then you back off and let me work. I'm not doing this as a committee. Understand?”